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Magic in a bottle and sand sack.


Saltydude

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So I was watching some brstv and they kept using this bottle of magic (bio spira) and then adding fish straight away and I have seen some people buy the more expensive magic sand sack and bottle.

My question is do the magic ("live bacteria") in bottles and sacks actually work. I'm no biologist here but I think that bacteria need to eat stuff otherwise it eventually dies. So is the magic packed with food?

Is using magic in a bottle gonna Make months/weeks of maturing water in a couple of seconds or is adding fish with bio spira same as fishy cycling?

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They are legit. All that is needed for bacteria to remain is any surface not to be treated with an antibiotic substance, direct feed is not required from us, because feed gets in and on surfaces naturally. Even dry surfaces touched a single time by humans retain an oil slick that will house and protect bacteria who knows how long, it varies...

 

When something is wet and not treated with an antibacterial substance it will stay contaminated with bacteria until that substance is applied, or other antibiotic measures such as temp extremes, no direct feed required. Direct feeding will allow more bacteria until steady states develop then populations even out based on conditions

 

Being wet makes nonfiltration bacteria boon, then die in cycles, and that decay will feed the filtration bacteria. So many routes for natural feed gain

 

That is why we can put a pile of red bricks in an aquarium, fill it with tap water, come back in a year and they will be able to digest measurable amnts of ammonia though we added no direct feed. Feed (ammonia or precursors) simply speeds things up in our favor. Ammonia gets in even if we don't feed, and setting up an aquarium introduces millions of seed bacteria via basic contamination

 

Bottles of filter bac have a year shelf life with no direct feed simply because liquid is there... microbes r amazing resourcers. Entire industries exist to find ways to keep liquid substances free of bac. It's hard to kill them, not hard to keep them alive.

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So the magic is alive in the bottle/ sack... And this bacteria will let you add fish straight away without causing the fish to die or get really stressed like fishy cycling

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That part to me is the rushed part I sure wouldn't fish cycle using only bottled additives because of variations that may still let ammonia compile. The only reliable approach is to give time water and ammonia and seeding if desired such that the surfaces do the work and not items in suspension in the water, then do a digestion or oxidation test to see if the system reduces free ammonia before adding bioload. That's the dry rock cycling mode I like

 

If the surfaces are known ready, then it's ok to skip cycle with fish or not. I do instant setups with sps and coral for my picos, adding a blenny would change nothing and no ammonia results due to using purple live rock merely transferred among tanks. I use cured live rock, nothing dies off in the transfer.

 

All the tanks at marine aquarium conventions are skip cycle setups just the same, but they didn't use dry rock they use cured materials moved among tanks.

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